


alarmed

by navylights



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arms, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Hand Jobs, I have No Excuse, M/M, Magic Rituals, Other, This is pure crack, Weird Shit, arm puns aplenty, garbage, shit goes wrong, transformations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:11:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navylights/pseuds/navylights
Summary: Wherein Castiel gets turned into a single dismembered arm.(and Dean gets to know said arm. Intimately.)





	alarmed

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah this is ????????

Dean stared at the scroll, not comprehending the ancient off-brand Sumerian symbols. His arms were folded across his chest. “And this will bring him back? Exactly like he was?”

“Uh, sort of,” Sam said. “It will create an exact facsimile of his body for him to inhabit. He'll have to leave his old one behind in- wherever he is.”

“So it'll be him.”

“Yes.”

“And you're completely, absolutely sure this'll work?” Dean wasn't trying to be a gruff asshole, but he couldn't help it. The past few weeks had been _hard_. His best friend, the only best friend he'd ever had, had died at the hands of the oldest enemy on Earth and all of its adjacent realms. And he'd been coping, ish. He'd had to take a lot more antacids than normal.

Well, only because it turned out drinking a week’s worth of hard dark liquor every night and into the morning caused some stomach lining issues.

“Dean, nothing is ever certain, but it's worth a shot.”

“What if it doesn't work?”

“Then we're no worse off than we already were.”

“Do we have all the stuff we need?”

“Once the hydra venom comes off eBay," Sam replied with a nod.

 

***

 

The morning of the ritual, Dean dressed in a grey shirt as he drank more whisky from the crystal decanter on his bedside table. Nice. Rich. Woodsy. Inebriating.

A strange sensation twinged in his abdomen.

Could they really get Castiel back?

“Morning.”

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said, walking into the kitchen. If Sam noticed a particular scent on his breath, he didn't say anything. “We outta beer?”

“9 AM,” Sam said. “Have some toast.”

“Let's just go downstairs already.”

Sam nodded. His face was unreadable. Dean didn't like it.

In the library, Sam had cleared a giant oak table off completely in preparation for the ritual. A sigil was painted in a dark red substance Dean didn't care to think about, and clumps of some yellow powder the color and consistency of ground turmeric were mixed in. Thirteen little bowls of animal bone sat at various junctions on the sigil, and were filled with different ground herbs and substances. A painstakingly etched candle sat beneath an iron dish full of beets, bone marrow, somethingwort, and rabbit fur.

“This is….different,” Dean said. “Where'd you find this spell?”

“You don't wanna know. Trust me.”

“ _That's_ not suspicious,” Dean said.

“Do you wanna get started or not?” Sam asked.

Dean gestured at the table in an arm movement that was somehow monosyllabic even though it was silent.

“Stand back,” Sam commanded, and the ritual began.

“I҉H҉C҉d҉y҉i҉t҉d҉i҉x҉i҉g҉y҉o҉x҉o҉y҉s҉sʎoxoʎɓıxıpʇıʎpƆHIเђς๔ץเՇ๔เאเﻮץmÐå¢£ß†å†ïl,” Sam chanted. “ℭ.” He lit the candle. “MᎮЯЯ ггﻮ๓ՇŦ O҉y҉l҉i҉n҉g҉E҉o҉y҉L҉i҉L҉o҉m҉.” He stirred the dish, and flicked powders from some of the other dishes into it. “ςรץรคค๓ค๒ץ๒๔๏ภŦ๏ร.” He lifted up the dish of beets and rabbit fur and dumped a bone chalice of herbed wine into it. It caught on fire immediately, and he poured it out over the sigil, which began to glow a fantastic variety of colors reminiscent of the Northern Lights. “ʜƚɒɘᴎɿɘbᴎuiƚƚɘʜǫɒqꙅ||ɒdƚɒɘm||ɒdƚɒɘM!!!!!” Sam shouted, and a blinding flash of light filled the room, and Dean's ears screamed. He passed out before he even realized what was happening.

When he came to, the room was dark. He felt around in his pocket for his phone and shone the light around. Sam was out cold, sprawled halfway under the table, and Cas was-

Cas?

Dean shot to his feet. The angel was standing in a corner. Completely naked.

 _Guess whatever spell Sammy dug up didn't also resurrect his clothes._ Dean averted his eyes, torn between hugging the guy and appearing heterosexual. He stalled about three feet away from the naked angel.

“Uh…..lemme get uh…….the lights,” Dean said, turning around and feeling his way to the light switches. Amazingly, they turned on. All that time changing light bulbs due to superpowered creatures got a little old. Dean had spent _hours_ changing light bulbs before. That had been one perk of supernatural showdowns occurring in motels instead of a permanent home.

As he walked back, Sam was stirring, groaning quietly as he rose back to consciousness.

But Dean was too busy staring at Cas staring down at himself to bother with his ambiguously injured brother.

“Cas. You're…...you're alive.” Dean's voice sounded more like a croak. A very manly croak.

“Hello, Dean,” said Cas, ever the pinnacle of creativity.

“Uh…..can you magic yourself some clothes?” Dean asked.

“It seems I cannot. My grace appears to be…...diminished.”

Dean's heart dropped. “What do you mean diminished?”

“I think something's wrong,” Cas said. He patted down his own chest, hands dropping lower and lower. Dean turned red and looked away. He didn't want his eyes guided towards-

“Cas?” Sam was riding unsteadily to his feet. “That you?”

“Yes.”

“You're….”

“Alive?”

“Naked.”

Cas exhaled in frustration. “Where did you get this spell? The bargain bin?”

“I- what?”

“I asked where you got this spell. I'm assuming you two are the ones who revived me?”

“Yes, yes, we were,” Sam stammered.

“Oh no no, you were the one who did it. It was all Sam,” Dean said.

“What's wrong, Cas?” Sam asked. “Other than, you know,” Sam gestured vaguely at Cas’s exposed body.

Slowly, looking embarrassed, Castiel turned around.

Protruding from his shoulder blades, where his wings would have been had they been physical rather than metaphysical, were another pair of arms. They were life size, and looked like the ones he already had. They dangled like the ones at his side.

Both brothers yelped in unison.

“Ah!! Jesus Christ!” Dean shielded his eyes as if Cas had started to glow.

“What are those?” Sam shouted.

“What language did you use?” Cas demanded, turning back around. Dean peeked through his fingers like a child watching a scary scene of an otherwise pleasant movie. The arms were obscured again, but something else was still fully visible. Too visible. Too grand. Like a beacon. A lighthouse in the storm. A big di-

“A rare Canaanite dialect dating back to a millennium or two before Christ,” Sam answered.

“You absolutely _fool_ ,” Cas said. “In most Canaanite dialects, the word for _wing_ and the word for _arm_ are completely interchangeable. You had to use context clues. Did you put context clues in the spell??”

“I-” Sam looked around wildly. “I don't know how to do that!”

“Now I'm stuck with- with arms!”

 

***

 

It turned out that a trenchcoat was a fortuitous choice for a being who would end up with an extra set of arms. True, it bulged a bit, but less than, say, a Lycra gymnastics leotard. And Castiel refused to consider wearing anything else.

They were barreling down the highway in the Impala. The sky drooled rain in a reflection of the tense mood inside. Castiel sat on the edge of the backseat to avoid squishing his extra arms, and Dean kept glancing in the mirror, trying not to smirk at his obvious discomfort.

“So you say your grace was depleted too?” Sam asked, gazing at his phone.

“Correct. This body is mostly human.”

“And then some,” Dean said. Cas narrowed his eyes at him. “What? You don't think the extra pair will come in _handy_?”

“You _wish_ it would come in _handy_ ,” Sam muttered under his breath. Dean ignored him.

“Hey, maybe now you can lend me a hand sometimes.”

“You're lucky my powers are diminished,” Cas growled.

“We're all very lucky that there's a group of followers of the ancient Canaanite religion in Topeka,” Sam said, cutting off what was assuredly going to be a wonderfully witty retort from Dean. “Hopefully, they can shed some light on the whole arm slash wing thing.”

“Yeah, speaking of Topeka, we’ll be there in about a half hour,” Dean said. Cas glowered the rest of the way there, staying silent even as they scarfed down burgers (and a grilled chicken for Sam) from a drive-thru off the exit.

The Canaanites’ head priest lived in a nice house in a development where all the houses were identically hewn from a fake reddish-brown stone. The trees were barely grown. The only thing that distinguished one property from the next was the occasional swing set, slide, or overturned bicycle on the lawn. Sam walked behind the angry angel to obscure his lumpy back as Dean strode up to the house and rung the doorbell. A wreath of evergreens and red berries hung on the glass door.

“Hello?” A man in an argyle sweater answered the door.

“Um, hi. My name’s Dean. This is Sam, and Castiel.” He drew in a deep breath. “We’re hear because of a little mix up.”

“Um. Do you want to elaborate on that a little more?”

“See, your language has a bit of a flaw. _Arm_ and _wing_ are interchangeable, and Cas here would rather interchange them back."

“What back?”

“Show him,” Dean said.

Glaring, Cas turned around and removed his trenchcoat.

“Oh my,” said the argyle priest. “You'd better come in.”

“Can you help us?” Sam asked as they were lead to a spacious living room with gleaming white walls and plenty of natural light. A conical vase held sprigs of some brown plant, and an enormous coffee table book on Henri Matisse lay open next to it. Cas slumped in an overstuffed grey armchair. Dean and Sam sat on the matching couch after setting aside half a dozen tasteful throw pillows apiece.

“My name is Paul,” said the man. “My partner, Charles, and I, consider ourselves the foremost Canaanite scholars in the greater Topeka area. That's how we met, actually.”

“Can't imagine that's a large group,” Dean muttered. Sam shot him a sharp glare.

“So you're not actually followers of the religion?”

“Oh no, we are,” Paul said. “We're very well versed. So what exactly happened here?”

Sam told him the story, more or less from the beginning, leaving out the bits about Lucifer, nakedness, and various other sins. Paul's eyebrows rose higher and higher into his receding hairline as the story went on.

“.....So now we've got an angel with arms for wings.”

“And you need us to help you reverse the procedure?”

“Or help us learn how to add context clues to our elaborate and confusing sigils,” Sam concluded.

“Huh. Well, I must tell you, we usually only perform a fertility ritual or two a year. Maybe do a funeral here and there. This type of magic might be totally beyond us at the moment.”

“Please,” Cas said, breaking his hour-long silence. “You're my only hope.”

 

***

 

 

Three hours later, Dean was bouncing his leg impatiently while Sam paged through the Matisse book. Castiel had been in Paul’s basement-slash-altar for a long time, and Charles had insisted that the brothers stay out.

Finally, a scream from below had both of them on their feet and racing towards the basement staircase, which was elegantly hidden by a cream-colored door. They raced down the hardwood stairs. The scene that greeted them was…...strange. Charles cowered in a corner while Paul wrestled with what appeared to be a dismembered arm.

“What the hell happened?” Dean demanded.

“I don't know!!” Paul shouted as the arm grabbed onto his face. “Get him off of me!”

“ _Him????_ ” Sam asked.

“Your friend, he's……he's an arm now,” Charles said.

 

****

 

 

After trying and failing multiple times to reverse the spell, the Winchesters left the house with Castiel tucked into a sustainable bamboo-fiber reusable shopping bag. _(“You're just giving it to them? My mother bought us those!” “It's the least we can do. After all, we armed their boyfriend.”)_

“Where should we put him?” Sam asked.

“I dunno. Backseat?”

“Okay.” He opened up the rear door and placed the arm bag inside. Cas began to thrash furiously. “Okay, okay, we can put you up front.” He placed Cas on the bench between them, propped against the seat, arm up, and he stilled.

“This is so weird, man,” Dean said.

“I know,” agreed Sam. “I mean, how sentient is he?”

Castiel wiggled his fingers a bit.

“Can you hear?” Dean asked.

More wiggling.

“Is that a yes?”

More wiggling.

“Okay. How bout if you want to say yes, you point with one finger. Two for no. Can you tell what we're saying?”

One finger. Yes.

“Can you see?”

The hand hesitated, and then finally made a flat palm, rotating it back and forth at the wrist, the symbol for _sort of_.

“Okay, are you……sensing us?”

Another _sort of_ gesture.

“Well, it's getting late,” Dean said. “Those of us with internal organs need to eat.”

“Should we head back to the bunker? We could get there by 11:30 if we don't stop,” Sam pointed out.

“Sounds good,” Dean said. “Except, dinner first.” As he started the car, Cas slumped a little in his seat. Sam’s phone began to ring.

“Hello?”

Dean backed out of the parking space.

“She _what?!?!?_ ”

Sam looked over at Dean.

“Okay. Thank you for the heads up. Goodbye.”

“What's happening?” Dean asked as Sam hung up and stuck his phone back into his pocket.

“Rowena's alive.”

“Huh. That wily witch.”

“You think she could fix Cas?” Sam and Dean looked at each other.

“If anyone can, it's her.”

If it was possible for an arm to look dejected, Cas sure as hell fit the bill.

 

***

 

Back at the bunker, Dean carried Cas’s body bag inside. Sam headed straight for bed while Dean grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and propped Cas up on the kitchen table.

“So…….what's it like? Does it suck? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it does,” Dean said, laughing at his own joke as he drank his beer.

Castiel extended a middle finger, which made Dean spew beer all over the table and his torso-less friend.

“Oh my god, Cas, I didn't know you had it in ya! Seriously, I'm surprised you even know how to do that.” Suddenly, a thought hit him. “Stay here. Well, not like you have legs. Or wings.” Cas relaxed his hand only so he could flip Dean off again, but the fully-formed human was already gone. He returned a moment later with a notepad that said _Days Inn_ across the bottom in green writing and a fancy Men of Letters pen. He set the notepad in front of Cas and put the placed the pen awkwardly into Cas’s fingers, ignoring the twinge that jolted his skin as if he'd just dunked his hand in a bucket of liquid electricity. Cas's skin was so warm.

“So, tell me. Where'd you learn to do that?”

Cas flopped over awkwardly and began to write.

_I'm not a child. The middle finger as a form of insult has been around for a very, very long time._

“You kind of are a child, though, in some ways,” Dean said.

_I'm not. I'm older than humanity. You are only about forty._

“I am not forty!” Dean cried indignantly.

_Not yet. But soon._

“Okay, now you're just fucking with me. Very funny.”

_I am not fucking you._

“Fucking _with_ me, Cas, _with_ me.” Red splotches spread across Dean’s glorious cheekbones.

_That too._

Dean muttered something unintelligible and took a long drink from his beer, finishing it off and grabbing another one. “So, how much can you see, anyway?”

_It isn't seeing, per se, more like sensing. My powers seem to be strong in this form, but I would have trouble using them for much other than sensing and moving._

“So what are you gonna do until we track down Rowena? You can't do much while you're still arm candy.”

If an arm could have blinked, Cas would have done it.

_It is hard for me to lend a hand to much while I'm like this._

“Ayy! Nice one!” Dean said, leaning in for a fist bump. “Don't worry, we’ll keep you safe. We're……armed and dangerous.”

_Dean, I have to ask you something._

“Um, okay,” Dean said, suddenly nervous.

_Please don't keep me at arm’s length._

“What do you mean?” Dean swallowed. The pun could wait. What was more important was deflecting any hint of an emotional request.

The arm hesitated before skittering quickly across the page. _I_ _mean_ …… _it's_ _lonely like this. Don't leave._

“I wasn't planning on leaving you. As long as you lend a hand,” Dean said, cracking an unconvincing smile.

Cas was still for a moment, and then dropped the pen.

“Cas?”

Cas began to inch towards Dean, crawling across the table. He hesitated on the edge before leaping across and landing on Dean’s chest.

“What are you doing?” Dean asked, voice barely higher than a breath.

 _LENDING A HAND_. It was like there was someone whispering and screaming at the same time, directly into his brain. Dean's heart rate increased significantly as the hand ran down his chest. It was the fond touch of a lover, and he found himself……responding……accordingly.

“Cas, you- we-” Dean cut off, inhaling sharply, as Cas reached his waist.

_YOU DON’T WANT THIS?_

Dean didn't answer, so the arm began to retreat.

“No- wait. Don't stop,” Dean pleaded. “Since when can you get in to my brain like that, anyway- ah!” He stopped again as the hand began to stroke slowly up his leg. It hesitated for a minute when it reached his junk, straining against his jeans, but ultimately continued. Dean closed his eyes, not sure what to do with his hands when there was no body to touch. But after a moment, a purpose dawned on him. He unzipped his jeans and adjusted himself so that he was free through the hole in his boxers.

Cas began to touch him, carefully at first, and then gaining steam as he was rewarded with a low moan from the hunter. His hand worked slowly, stroking up and down his dick. Dean's head dropped back as the angel worked.

“Oh my god, Cas,” he groaned. It had been so long since he had been touched by anyone but himself, and it felt fantastic. He was closer than he should have been from a hand job.

_IT’S OKAY._

“Cas,” Dean moaned as the angel worked his dismembered magic on his member.

 _DEAN_.

He came hard, all over the arm and all over his jeans.

 

 

***

 

“Morning,” Dean muttered at Cas, who was still lying on the kitchen table, and Sam, who was eating a bowl of granola at said kitchen table. He refused to think about the fact that Sam was sitting in the same place where last night he'd- well.

“Hi, Dean,” Sam said. Cas just waved.

Dean’s heart dropped out the bottom of his ass when he realized the notepad he'd been conversing with Cas on still laid on the table. But if Sam had read it, he didn't mention it. His laptop was open in front of his bowl of granola.

“So I've been tracking this lead on Rowena,” Sam said, but Dean was concentrating all of his concentration on appearing normal. He microwaved a sausage burrito and stuck the whole thing in his mouth before heading over to the table. _No! Too phallic. But if I take it out now, I'll look like I'm overly concerned and therefore hiding something. Just take a bite, Dean, and set it back down._

“........between Louisiana and Florida,” Sam was saying.

“Huh,” Dean said. He waited until Sam had reached a point in his story that he needed to pull up some information on the computer to subtly slide the Days Inn notepad off the table.

“So we should leave soon,” Sam concluded. Finally.

The trip was long, but they were used to it. At one point halfway through Arkansas, a state trooper pulled Dean over for speeding.

“License and registration,” he said, sounding bored. He crouched down to peer in the car. “What the hell is that?” He asked, pointing at Castiel.

“Oh, um, it's-”

“We're prop guys. For like, the movies, you know?” Sam said, smiling widely at the officer.

“Did that thing just _move_?!??”

“It's animatronic,” Dean said. “See?” He grabbed Castiel and waved him around a bit, but the angel stayed limp.

“Isn't that the broken one?” Sam asked, thinking quickly.

“Oh, you're right,” Dean said. “Anyway, here's my license.”

“Do you know how fast you were going back there, Mr…….Smith?”

“No sir,” Dean said.

“Well, I'll cut you loose with a warning this time. But in the future, don't expect a helping hand from me.”

“No sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Alright. You boys take care.”

“You too, officer.”

 

***

 

Rowena was holed up in, unsurprisingly, a four star hotel in New Orleans. Her body looked much younger than it had been the last time they'd seen her.

“Boys! What a…….wonderful…….surprise,” Rowena said as they busted open the door with guns a-blazin’.

“How are you alive?” Sam demanded.

“Um, should I leave?” An extremely hairless young man walked out of the bathroom with a towel clutched in front of his junk.

“No, Rupert, these lads won't be long at all. Will they, boys?”

“Of course. Once you fix him.” Dean didn't lower the gun.

“Oh?” Rowena raised her impeccably shaped red eyebrows. “And what's wrong with Sammy this time? Little bit of VD got you down?”

“Yeah, I'm gonna just….” Rupert gestured at the door and vanished.

“Not Sam. Castiel,” Dean clarified.

“What's wrong?”

“Show her the bag,” Dean told Sam. Sam lowered his gun and let the Cas out of the bag.

“And what's that then?” Rowena's newly youthful face was full of glee.

“It's Cas.”

“Oh, dearie.” Rowena sighed. “It seems we've quite got our work cut out for us.”

 

***

 

 

The third time’s the charm, and Castiel was finally restored to his full body (with no extras). The only hitch was minor.

“So what do we do with the arm now?” Sam asked as Castiel put on his new trenchcoat.

“I dunno, toss it? Burn it?” Dean suggested. He hadn't been able to meet the angel’s eye now that he had them again.

“No!” Castiel said.

“What? Why not?” Sam asked.

“Because,” Cas said, sighing, “I still retain feeling and control of that arm.”

“So you've got, like, an extra body now?” Dean asked, his skin flaming.

“Extra arm. See?”

On the table, the arm, which had been painted in symbols, waved hello.

“That's weird,” Sam said. “Thanks, Rowena,” he said, giving her a slight wave and heading out into the hallway.

“Bye boys,” she said, winking at Cas.

“What are you gonna do with the extra arm?” Dean asked as Cas tucked it under his arm- the attached one, that is.

“I can think of a few things,” he said, voice betraying no mischief as the arm-body pinched Dean's ass.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I know nothing about the Canaanites I pretty much just used a random ass old language sorry if there are any real life canaanites out there these days


End file.
